"No," he answered. "Not now--that Is past."

She looked at him for a little time; and, her hands joined before her,
her fingers locked and interlocked nervously.

"And--and Thornton?" she asked, at last.

"It was a trust," said Madison slowly; "but it was betrayed before it
was given. He did not know--the game. He did not know what was
between--you and me."

"No," she said--and the word came almost inaudibly.

"And so," he said, "I will tell you, for it cannot matter now in any
case. He told me that he had asked you to marry him to-night--and that
you had refused."

Madison paused, and swept his hand across his forehead--his voice
somehow had suddenly grown hoarse, beyond control.

"Yes," she said--and reached again for the back of the bench, supporting
herself against it.

"He is going away," Madison continued; "and he is to send more money
here for the 'cause'--when I ask for it--only you are not to know,
because you might be diffident about taking it after refusing him."

She stared at him numbly--there was no sarcasm in his words; in his
tones only a sort of dreary monotony. She shivered a little--how cold it
seemed! She did not quite grasp his words--and yet she shrank from them.